Automatic bagging equipment is now well known and widely used. Such equipment typically employs pre-opened bags maintained in a web that is fed from either a box or a roll to a loading station where goods or materials are placed into the pre-opened bags and the bags are subsequently sealed and separated from the web. The bags are sequentially indexed to the loading station.
In accordance with the prior art, the bags employed in automatic bagging machines are typically not reusable. These bags, typically made of an appropriate polymeric film, are generally torn open by the user to make access to the materials therein, and such bags are not given to being resealed or reused.
In recent years, it has become quite popular to provide certain materials in resealable or reusable bags. These bags are often characterized by the presence of a “zipper seal” at an end thereof which allows the user to access the interior of the bag by simply separating tongues and grooves of the zipper seal and then subsequently resealing the bag by reengaging such tongues and grooves. Such bags have been widely accepted and broadly employed, but are not conducive to implementation with automatic bagging machines. Such bags are not provided on a roll or any continuous web, but rather are separately and individually manufactured, handled, filled and sealed.
There remains a need in the art for pre-opened resealable bags that are conducive to utilization with presently known automatic bagging machines.